‘Climate models predicted it wouldn’t happen until the end of the century.
So Seattle researchers were stunned to discover that vast swaths of acidified sea water are already showing up along the Pacific Coast as carbon dioxide from power plants, cars and factories mixes into the ocean.
In surveys from Vancouver Island to the tip of Baja California, the scientists found the first evidence that large amounts of corrosive water are reaching the continental shelf — the shallow sea margin where most marine creatures live. In some places, including Northern California, the acidified water was as little as four miles from shore.
“What we found … was truly astonishing,” said oceanographer Richard Feely, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. “This means ocean acidification may be seriously impacting marine life on the continental shelf right now.”‘
‘At 2:25 P.M., I happened to be down on the street, smoking a cigarette with a co-worker. Out of the blue, I hear “Splat,” followed by piercing, vivid screams of fear and nauseous anxiety.
Suddenly, I saw two girls running down the side of the street with blood and muscle tissue covering their faces. And I just walked around, asking myself what the hell was going on.
In the confusion, my buddy told me to turn around. I did, and there it was: [..]’
‘Astronomers have found some matter that had been missing in deep space and say it is strung along web-like filaments that form the backbone of the universe.
The ethereal strands of hydrogen and oxygen atoms could account for up to half the matter that scientists knew must be there but simply could not see, the researchers reported on Tuesday.
Scientists have long known there is far more matter in the universe than can be accounted for by visible galaxies and stars. Not only is there invisible baryonic matter — the protons and neutrons that make up atoms — but there also is an even larger amount of invisible “dark” matter.
Now about half of the missing baryonic matter has turned up, seen by the orbiting Hubble space telescope and NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE.’
‘Pensioner Malcolm Butterworth completed 18,235 pieces of one of the world’s biggest jigsaws — then found the remaining five were missing.
But thanks to German efficiency, he’s now managed to fill the gaps in the whopping jigsaw — nearly 10ft wide — after nearly a year completing it.
Retired businessman Malcolm, 70, of Llandudno, was given the Ravensburger “4 Historic World Maps” as a Christmas present.
Now he’s had it stuck to hardboard and hopes to sell it in aid of the town’s St David’s Hospice.’
‘”His heart filled virtually his whole chest,” recalls Dr. Diane Meier describing her very first patient, an 89-year-old suffering from end-stage congestive heart failure.
It was the first day of Meier’s internship at a hospital in Portland Oregon, and after being assigned 23 patients, she was suddenly told that one of her patients, who had been in the Intensive Care Unit for months, was “coding.” She raced to the ICU where the resident told her to put in a “central line.”
“I didn’t know how,” Meier admits. “I felt overwhelmed and inadequate. Then, the patient died …
“Everyone just walked out of the room,” she remembers. I stood there. I still sometimes flash back on that scene: the patient, naked, lying on the table, strips of paper everywhere, the room empty. This was my patient. I felt I was supposed to do something — but I didn’t know what.”‘
‘Blake Dwyer remembers pain:
And shouting.
And fear.
“I thought a swarm of wasps was after me,” the 17-year-old Guyer High School athlete said. “I was trying to fight them off.”
He doesn’t remember the epileptic seizure he suffered July 18, 2007, when he was 16.
He doesn’t remember fighting to keep from being tied to a stretcher or hitting a paramedic.
His brother, Travis Baker, 17, remembers all of it. He recalls screaming at Corinth police to stop shocking Blake with a Taser. His mother, Deana, remembers hearing Travis crying on the telephone.
“He was saying, ‘Blake is having a seizure, and they’re hurting him,'” she said.’
‘The remains of a woman have been found sitting in front of her TV – 42 years after she was reported missing.
Hedviga Golik, who was born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cup of tea before sitting in her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television.
Croatian police said she was last seen by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old.
Her neighbours thought she had moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb.
But she was found by police and bailiffs who had broken in to help the authorities establish who owned the flat.
A police spokesman said: “So far, we have no idea how it is possible that someone officially reported missing so long ago was not found before in the same apartment she used to live in.’
‘Police in Russia are investigating after pupils stripped off their clothes, climbed walls or lay on the floor laughing after their school dinners were spiked with drugs.
The teenaged students were given ecstasy in their soup and drinks at their school in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in eastern Russia.
Doctors who were called in said the students showed signs of intoxication and prosecutors later found traces of ecstasy.’
‘A man who allegedly photographed more than 3,000 women’s bottoms as they toured Venice has been arrested.
The man was stopped after police became suspicious of a large bag he was carrying as he followed women through St Mark’s Square. [..]
Police said he was filming through a small hole in the side of the bag.
The officers had become suspicious when they realised he was only following women with short skirts. When they stopped or bent down to pick something up, he was clearly trying to angle the bag behind them.
When the voyeur was finally caught police recovered several DVDs which held more than 3,000 images of women’s bottoms.’
‘My best friend and I were in the diner talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French Fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spend a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time.
We never got serious about anything in particular and spend most of our time laughing.
As I went to take some of my vitamins with a snack as I usually did, she watched me this time with a kind of start, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have MS and be sick.’
It’s not a bad theory. Generally applicable to all sorts of things.
‘William Shatner desperately tried to avoid romancing obsessed STAR TREK fans – because they wanted to enact their sci-fi fantasies with the actor.
The 77-year-old, who shot to fame as Captain Kirk in the original 1960s TV show, insists he couldn’t enjoy flings with the series’ most devoted followers because he was so turned off by their bizarre bedroom behaviour.
In his new autobiography, Up Till Now, Shatner explains how women would pretend they were being “beamed up” by the Starship Enterprise commander, shrieking: “So, this is what it’s like to be in bed with Captain Kirk!”
He writes: “You can’t imagine how much of a downer that is in every sense of the word.”‘
‘Welcome to LHCountdown.com, this site is primarily a countdown site to the activation of the Large Hadron Collider but is also a hub collecting all articles relating to and about the LHC.’
.. It’s a bit late in the game to find a counter now. There’s only 14 hours to go.
Still, that’s 14 hours of waiting for the LHC to destroy us all with a blackhole. So I can pretend it’s a doomsday clock. 🙂
‘I do not like koalas. They are nasty, cross, stupid creatures without a friendly bone in their bodies. Their social habits are appalling – the males are always beating their fellows up and stealing their females. They have disgusting defensive mechanisms. Lice infest their fur. They snore. Their resemblance to cuddly toys is a base deceit. There is nothing to commend them.
On top of all that, a koala once tried to do me a very nasty mischief.’
‘An Omaha man saved a life, his own life by getting the courage to turn a knife on himself and perform a tracheotomy.
Steve Wilder has faith in God and after a near death experience last week he has a lot of faith in himself. “I was scared to death. I was thinking about dying.”
Just after midnight, Wilder found himself in a dead sleep. Dead because he woke up and couldn’t breathe, his air passage swollen shut
“It just blocked all the way and I just got up and I panicked!” The 55-year-old Wilder, who didn’t think he had time to call and wait for help, faced an unimaginable choice. Either lie there and suffocate to death or take matters into his own hands with a steak knife. [..]’
‘In homes, apartments, and shanties throughout Buenos Aires, thousands of graying women joyfully pee into plastic containers at all hours of the day.
It isn’t exactly the picture postcard image that Argentina’s Secretariat of Tourism wants spread around the globe.
Gauchos, mountain peaks, tango, Patagonia, steak – now that’s the stuff of travel brochures.
Yet at any given moment, there are thousands more 65-year-old matrons holding a piece of Tupperware between sagging thighs – silently praying that their hand is steady and aim direct – than tight-assed 20-year-olds twirling the Tango.
Properly aged piss, it turns out, is one of Argentina’s least-known but most-valued exports.
The liquid gold from the ripe bladders of postmenopausal women has been helping “float” the Argentine economy by tens of millions of dollars a year for the last decade. Somewhere deep within the pungent molecules of senescent whiz – we’re clearly running out of original ways to say pee – is a high-value hormone used to combat infertility in younger women with ripe, but unwilling eggs.’
‘Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home’s only bathroom, on the advice of a religious “superior” who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.
The children—a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy—cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body.
The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and self-described “bishop” Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child. [..]
Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier, but that God told her Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough.
She said she couldn’t say anything more until she spoke with her “superior”—Bushey, 57, also known as Bishop John Peter Bushey.’
‘A self-proclaimed manicurist decided to open for business in Concord on Monday without the state’s approval, attacking state licensing laws with a nail file. [..]
His first and only customer was Kat Dillon, of Frost, Texas, who said it was her first manicure. It was also Fisher’s first time giving one.
“I’m going to buff it and shine it with one of these, a buffer, basically,” he said.
The manicure performed without a license was undertaken right outside the state Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics office.
“The reason I’m doing this is because it’s one of the harmless things I can do to prove that the law is unjust,” Fisher said. “Without the government’s permission, you can’t do nails, hair, lot of other things.”
Fisher said his manicure movement was inspired by the movie “Ghandi” [..]’
(367kB and 3.8meg Flash videos)
see it here »
‘An Oregon couple received a frightening phone call from their son in Afghanistan when he inadvertently called home during battle.
Stephen Phillips and other soldiers in his Army MP company were battling insurgents when his phone was pressed against his Humvee. It redialed and called his parents in the small Oregon town of Otis.
Sandie Petee, Phillips’ mother, and her husband, Jeff Petee, weren’t home at the time of the call. They returned home to find a three-minute voice mail on their answering machine. [..]
They heard shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition on the phone call from their son.
“They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating,” said Jeff Petee. “It’s something a parent really doesn’t want to hear. It’s a heck of a message to get from your son in Afghanistan.”‘
(1.8meg Flash video)
see it here »
It looks like they were trying to move the truck under him to break the fall or something. Timing was a bit off tho.
(6.3meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A 13 year old from Texas who stole his Dad’s credit card and ordered two hookers from an escort agency, has today been convicted of fraud and given a three year community order.
Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old from Newark, Texas confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his father’s existing credit card company, and took his friends on a $30,000 spending spree, culminating in playing “Halo” on an Xbox with a couple of hookers in a Texas motel.
The credit card company involved said it was regular practice to send extra credit cards out as long as all security questions are answered.
The escort girls who were released without charge, told the arresting officers something was up when the kids said they would rather play Xbox than get down to business. [..]
Ralph’s ambition is to one day become a politician.’
‘The Church of Scientology has lost its grip on James Packer.
The billionaire’s closest friends have revealed that he has quietly distanced himself from Scientology, labelled a cult by some former members, as it faces international controversy about its anti-psychiatry stance.
Members of Mr Packer’s inner circle have confirmed that the billionaire, who had ranked as Scientology’s wealthiest member in the world, was no longer undertaking Scientology courses and had slowly moved away from the religion, telling his closest friends he no longer “needs it”.’
‘Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) stepped in front of a group of tech executives in Washington this morning to deliver a caffeinated and surprisingly sharp defense of network neutrality. Pledging to use “every ounce of my energy to protect network neutrality,” Wyden had a message for ISPs who might be pondering new charges for various forms of access: “think twice.” If ISPs start down that road, they might soon find that they lose key legal protections including “safe harbors” and tax freedom.
Wyden delivered his ultimatum at a Computer & Communications Industry Association conference in DC, where he cast the entire network neutrality debate in terms of a legislative compromise. Years ago, Congress began protecting ISPs from the twin threats of regulation and taxation; in return, ISPs were expected to deliver an unimpeded connection to the Internet. A move away from a neutral ‘Net would undermine the “very philosophical underpinnings of what we fought for for the last 15 years,” according to Wyden. If that happens, he sees no reason for Congress to continue sheltering ISPs.’
‘alright, i got a computer that used to be networked onto a server with classlinks in school or whatever., well i got it home thinking i could reformat the hard drive, yeah…no. they set up a password on the computer so when i go to the utility options or whatever, and it has a password as soon as it opens. and to let you know nothing boots. i tried installing XP but im almost 100% sure that that password is blockin the coputer from accessing it, bc when i go to install XP it says no mass storgae device found. So how do i over ride this password. i changed the RAM and switched out the hard drives, then i took out that little battery for 10 min or so..no luck, Somone please help me.’
‘Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person’s tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities. [..]
To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one’s social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.
If your beliefs don’t justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.’
‘Highly intoxicated and dissatisfied with her sex life, a 28-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday for stealing her husband’s wallet and later assaulting the deputy who booked her into jail.
The meltdown, which deputies witnessed along with the couple’s 3- and 4-year-old children, started when the husband, 24, had told his wife they had three hours to quit smoking, drinking, swearing and engaging in some sex acts because “they were going to be good Christians now,” the woman said.
The man said she had woken him up to have relations, but then became disappointed and angry. [..]
When deputies arrived, the woman denied any assault had taken place, and repeatedly, without sparing a vulgar euphemism, told the deputies about how unsatisfied she was with her sex life — some of the time carrying around a half-gallon of whiskey while doing so.
During an argument with one of the deputies, the woman picked up the family’s 20-pound dog and threw it at the deputy, who caught it, the report said.’
‘A California man has been arrested after police say they found about 300 dead cats stuffed into freezers in his house.
Animal control officers also removed 30 live cats from 47-year-old Michael Louis Vondueren’s home over the weekend.
Vondueren was arrested on suspicion of possessing an automatic weapon and obstructing police officers. Animal control officers also are considering issuing citations.
Sgt Jim Hose says Vondueren interfered with officers when they tried to enter his house. The sergeant says they found three freezers crammed with dead cats and the house littered with cat faeces.’
